Several years ago, the show Extreme Makeover -- Home Edition captured me because of its beautiful picture of a family receiving a beautiful new home through a sheer gift. I think it is a fitting metaphor for the Christian story -- that through no doing of our own we receive a completely new and improved spiritual home.
Ephesians 2:1-10 succinctly summarizes this transformation for a group of first-generation Christians Paul wrote to. These folks had a clear dividing line in their lives between the times before and after they encountered Christ. And the contrast between those two times couldn't have been any greater. Before Christ, they were spiritually dead, following the whims of the world, the cravings of their flesh, and the promptings of the devil -- under control of the unholy trinity.
But now through a sheer gift of God's love, mercy, kindness, and grace, they have been made alive in Christ and in some mysterious way, are now raised and seated with him in the heavenly realms. Given our human proclivity towards religion and constantly evaluating our moral and spriritual performance, Paul repeated reminds them (and us!) that this gift is just that -- a gift, unearned and undeserved.
Whatever "good works" they now do are simply a response to God's prior work in them. In fact, they themselves are living proof of this, since they are God's handiwork, his work of art, his masterpiece.
